


Punishment

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Q.U.E.E.N. - Janelle Monáe (Music Video)
Genre: Escape, F/F, Music, Rebellion, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 01:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17152604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: Punishment came in many different forms.





	Punishment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [intrikate88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrikate88/gifts).



Punishment came in many different forms. If there was one thing that the future government had figured out, it was that punishment didn’t have to be a “one size fits all” kind of thing. Oh, there were elements that were universal, of course, or at least semi-universal, but on the whole, what the populace feared was that their own personal fears would be used against them.

As a preventative measure, Janelle had to admit, it could be quite effective. Of course, there were those who thought they had nothing left to live for - nothing left to be taken away - and those were the most dangerous, as far as the government was concerned. How could you threaten someone with punishment if you couldn’t figure out what to threaten?

Then there were those, like Janelle her compatriots, who cared about _everything _. What was a little risk to themselves compared with trying to save so many more? Punishment would hurt, of course, but knowing the results of doing nothing - of not even _trying_ \- hurt her far worse.__

__Unfortunately, at least one person at the ministry for time travel - and Janelle wasn’t inclined to believe there was _more_ than one - actually appeared to have a bit of intelligence left. They had figured out - or perhaps lucked into - the most devastating punishment for her and her compatriots._ _

__It wasn’t entirely physical, of course, though there was a bit of discomfort involved. Nor was it intellectual, for the most part. No, this punishment was purely emotional. Janelle, Badoula, and the others were frozen. Not in pure stasis, where they would be unconscious, and unaware of the happenings around them. No, the stasis controllers that had been implanted into them by the Time Council were highly modified._ _

__Janell and the others could not move their bodies, but by the same token they could not shut down their minds. They were like mannequins, put on display in some museum, screaming internally, but unable to move. They were imprisoned within their own bodies._ _

__As people walked past her frozen form, Janelle couldn’t help but be reminded of others. Had she saved those she sought to? Were they, even now, being punished? Or were they free, out of bondage, making their own rules, making a new generation of time rebels? Had someone continued Wondaland’s rebellion after her capture?_ _

__Janelle couldn’t move - couldn’t see her compatriots, even though she knew from the automated recordings that they were in the same room as her. She listened desperately to the occasional guided tours, and to what the individual tourists muttered as they read their pamphlets. It was maddening to have so little information - almost worse than to have none at all! No, Janelle couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t sing. She could only sit the way they had posed her, listen, and worry._ _

____

oOo

It took several visits before Janelle realized that she recognized one of the tourists. It was a girl - no, a pair of girls, she finally realized - who had attended one of Wondaland’s time rallys. They had talked to Badoula after, if she recalled correctly. They came with something like frequency, sometimes alone, sometimes together, sometimes at the same time but apparently not together. It was an oddity, and oddities were frowned upon by the Time Council. Oddities led to hope.

The first stirrings of the music - something far removed from the sterille, unfeeling, “elevator” music that the Time Council used to subdue them - was like a breath of fresh air after months in an underground bunker. And the power of it flowed through Janelle’s body, just as it had one day many years from now.

She blinked.

Realizing that it shouldn’t be possible for her to do it delayed her second blink by several seconds. When she did it, her eyelashes flickering against her skin in the most delicate of touches, Janelle felt the power veritably _swell_ within her. It was at once painfully slow and immediate.

Her toes began to curl. Her fingers began to twitch. Her eyelids continued to blink frantically. Her shoulders tensed and released. Her tongue slipped along first one tooth, then another.

Her pulse thrummed in her ears, neck, and wrists, thumping her chest in time to the music that was powering her escape. Music she, herself, would create long long ago. A foot, a hand, a tilt of the head, a twitch of the hip.

From the sounds of a scuffle she heard, Janelle knew that the two girls - her apprentices, as time suddenly supplied - were continuing to secure their freedom.

A gasp then, as breathing restarted. Behind breathing, almost instantly, and without conscious thought, just as her lungs and heart were their own systems, her throat began to hum.

Words poured forth from Janelle. Words she had already written, yet still had yet to write. Her head turned. Her eyes followed the movement of the beat. Her body shimmied. She saw other members of Wondaland waking up from their own stasis, including Mary. Mary who had been trapped behind her, facing the other direction, unable to see each other.

Janelle wanted to run to her, but resisted. Her work was not done, and there would be time for that in the future. Or, more likely, there would be time for that in the past. Possibly even in the present. She would see how quickly the Time Council retaliated.

The apprentices stood a little away, dancing gently together. They had provided the spark, but only Janelle had the power to free all of the others with her song. Some were loosely restrained, while others, like Badoula, were as tightly locked down as she had so recently been. It was a working of time and musical powers that took her many minutes to complete, but Janelle would have them all freed.

Her apprentices had laid the groundwork, somehow escaping the purge that had seen so many members of Wondaland captured, but it was up to Janelle - and only Janelle - to complete the task.

She was freeing them. She was going to free them. She had already freed them.

Such were the powers of rebels who traveled through time.


End file.
